Justia U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs, a class of cardholders who paid credit card penalty fees, challenged those fees on constitutional grounds. Plaintiffs argued that the fees are analogous to punitive damages imposed in the tort context and are subject to substantive due process limits described in BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore. The court concluded that the due process analysis developed in the context of jury-awarded punitive damages was not applicable to contractual penalty clauses. Further, there was no derivative liability under the Unfair Competition Law. Accordingly, the district court did not err in dismissing the complaint where constitutional due process jurisprudence did not prevent enforcement of excessive penalty clauses in private contracts and the fees were permissible under the National Bank Act, 12 U.S.C. 85-86, and the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act (DIDMCA), 12 U.S.C. 1831d(a). View "In re: Late Fee & Over-Limit Fee Litigation" on Justia Law

137 named plaintiffs filed suit against 25 financial institutions alleging, among other things, that the institutions' deceptive mortgage lending and securitization practices decreased the value of their homes, impaired their credit scores, and compromised their privacy. The court concluded that the action was properly removed from state court to federal court because more than 100 named plaintiffs proposed a joint trial and because the other prerequisites of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA), Pub. L. No. 109-2, 119 Stat. 4, were satisfied. However, the court reversed and remanded to the district court to dismiss without prejudice the claims of all plaintiffs but the first named plaintiff because, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20(a), the First Amended Complaint did not present common questions of law. View "Visendi v. Bank of America" on Justia Law

Former starting quarterback for Arizona State University, Samuel Keller, filed a putative class action suit against EA, alleging that EA violated his right of publicity under California Civil Code 3344 and California common law by using Keller's likeness as part of the "NCAA Football" video game series. EA moved to strike the complaint as a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) under California's anti-SLAPP statute, Cal. Civ. Proc. Code 425.16. The court concluded that EA could not prevail as a matter of law based on the transformative use defense where EA's use did not qualify for First Amendment protection because it literally recreated Keller in the very setting in which he had achieved renown. The court also concluded that, although there was some overlap between the transformative use test and the Rogers v. Grimaldi test, the Rogers test should not be imported wholesale to the right-of-publicity claims. Finally, the court concluded that state law defenses for reporting of information did not protect EA's use. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of the motion to strike the complaint. View "In re: NCAA Licensing Litig." on Justia Law

Retired Hall of Fame football player, James "Jim" Brown, filed suit against EA, alleging that EA violated section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1125(a), through the use of Brown's likeness in EA's "Madden NFL" series of football video games. The court rejected the "likelihood of confusion" test and the "alternative means" test, concluding that the only relevant legal framework for balancing the public's right to be free from consumer confusion about Brown's affiliation with "Madden NFL" and EA's First Amendment rights in the context of Brown's section 43(a) claim was the Rogers v. Grimaldi test. Applying the Rogers test, the court concluded that the use of Brown's likeness was artistically relevant to the "Madden NFL" games and that there were no alleged facts to support the claim that EA explicitly mislead consumers as to Brown's involvement with the games. In this case, the public interest in free expression outweighed the public interest in avoiding consumer confusion. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of EA's motion to dismiss. View "Brown v. Electronic Arts, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a putative consumer class action suit against DirecTV and Best Buy, alleging violations of California's consumer protection laws. The arbitration agreement at issue in this instance was a customer service agreement between DirecTV and individuals who believed they purchased DirecTV equipment from Best Buy stores. AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion held that Section 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. 2, preempted the State of California's rule rendering unenforceable arbitration provisions in consumer contracts that waive collective or class action proceedings. The court concluded that the arbitration agreement in this case was enforceable under Concepcion and, therefore, the district court did not err in compelling plaintiffs to arbitrate their claims against DirecTV. The court concluded, however, that plaintiffs were not required to arbitrate their claims with Best Buy. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Murphy v. DirecTV, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against Wells Fargo under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), 15 U.S.C. 1692-1692p, and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), 15 U.S.C. 1691-1691f. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' FDCPA claim because the complaint did not plausibly allege that Wells Fargo was a debt collector under section 1692a(6). The court reversed, however, the district court's dismissal of the ECOA claim where the complaint's allegations that Wells Fargo took an adverse action without complying with ECOA's notice requirements were enough for the ECOA claim to survive a motion to dismiss because the parties agreed that Wells Fargo did not send plaintiffs an adverse action notice. View "Schlegel v. Wells Fargo Bank" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's dismissal of their first amended complaint and the district court's denial of leave to further amend their complaint. Plaintiffs claimed that defendants improperly initiated non-judicial foreclosure proceedings after plaintiffs failed to comply with the mortgage obligations financing their residence. Because the provisions of the deed of trust foreclosed the pleading of a plausible "show me the note" claim by plaintiffs, the district court appropriately dismissed this claim; the district court properly dismissed plaintiffs' claims premised on the unauthorized appointment of a successor trustee and/or the lack of proof of ownership of the note where these claims lacked legal and factual plausibility; because Arizona law countenances the trustee sale as conducted, plaintiffs failed to allege any plausible claims premised on the PEB Report or the UCC; plaintiffs' constitutional challenges of A.R.S. 33-811(b) were rejected by the court; plaintiffs' fraud and misrepresentation claims were barred by A.R.S. 12-543(3); and denial of leave to amend was within the district court's discretion. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Zadrozny, et al. v. Bank of New York Mellon, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued Kohl's Department Store claiming that he bought merchandise from Kohl's that he would not have purchased had he not been misled by advertisements stating that the merchandise was marked down from a fictitious "original" or "regular" price. At issue on appeal was whether plaintiff alleged that he "lost money or property" and, therefore, had statutory standing under California law to sue Kohl's to enforce California's prohibition on this deceptive marketing practice. In Kwikset Corp. v. Superior Court, the California Supreme Court held that all a consumer needed to allege to establish standing to bring an Unfair Competition Law (UCL), Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code 17200, et seq., or Fair Advertising Law (FAL), Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code 17500, et seq., claim was that (1) the defendant made a false representation about a product, (2) the consumer purchased the product in reliance on the misrepresentation, and (3) he would not have purchased the product otherwise. The court rejected defendant's argument that Kwikset was distinguishable because it involved a different type of unlawful misrepresentation than the one at issue here. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's UCL and FAL claims. For nearly identical reasons, the court reversed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's Consumer Legal Remedies Act (CLRA), Cal. Civ. Code 1750, et seq., claims. The court also denied defendant's motion to certify both on the merits and because of the circumstances attendant to its filing. View "Hinojos v. Kohl's Corp., et al." on Justia Law

Objectors appealed the district court's orders granting final approval to a class action settlement between HP and a nationwide class of consumers who purchased certain HP inkjet printers between certain dates. Under section 1712 of the Class Action Fairness Act, 28 U.S.C. 1712(a)-(c), a district court could not award attorneys' fees to class counsel that were "attributable to" an award of coupons without first considering the redemption value of the coupons. A district court could, however, award lodestar fees to compensate class counsel for any non-coupon relief they obtained, such as injunctive relief. Because the attorneys' fees award in this case violated section 1712, the court reversed and remanded to the district court for further proceedings. View "In re: HP Inkjet Printer Litigation" on Justia Law

This case stemmed from plaintiffs' allegations that defendants issued consumer credit reports with negative entries for debts already discharged in bankruptcy. On appeal, plaintiffs and objectors challenged the district court's approval of a class-action settlement that granted incentive awards to the class representatives for their services to the class. The settlement agreement conditioned payment of incentive awards on the class representatives' support for the settlement. These conditional incentive awards caused the interests of the class representatives to diverge from the interests of the class because the settlement agreement told class representatives that they would not receive incentive awards unless they supported the settlement. Moreover, the conditional incentive awards significantly exceeded in amount what absent class members could expect to get upon settlement approval. Because these circumstances created a patent divergence of interests between the named representatives and the class, the court concluded that the class representatives and class counsel did not adequately represent the absent class members. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's approval of the settlement. View "Radcliffe v. Experian Info. Solutions" on Justia Law